


I Will Make the Hymns of You

by Laura Shapiro (laurashapiro)



Series: Leaves of Grass [4]
Category: Good Omens (TV)
Genre: Aziraphale finally deals with his shit, Dirty Talk, Established Relationship, Ineffable Husbands (Good Omens), M/M, Other, Wing Grooming, Xeno, aetherial sex
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-12
Updated: 2019-07-12
Packaged: 2020-06-26 17:06:18
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,036
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19772659
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/laurashapiro/pseuds/Laura%20Shapiro
Summary: "You know," Aziraphale said, "our people have accused us of going native, and I begin to think maybe they're right.""How do you mean?""It occurs to me that aside from taking our wings out now and again, we have not been...maximizing our potential.""You sound like Gabriel. Speak English, not corporate!" Crowley discarded a molted sheath and began aligning the secondary and primary feathers in Aziraphale’s right wing. Shivers ran down the wing and into his spine."Mmm, that is so lovely. What I mean is, we have been fucking like humans do."





	I Will Make the Hymns of You

**Author's Note:**

> This is the conclusion of the Leaves of Grass series, but I am already writing more smut about these two, never fear.

Aziraphale arced one wing over his shoulder and tsked. “These have gotten into such a state. It’ll be such a lot of work to set them right.”

Crowley, reclining next to him in Aziraphale’s recently-purchased bed, put down his magazine. “Here, let me.”

Aziraphale smiled to himself, rolled over on his side, and sank into the pillows with a sigh, his feathers involuntarily fluffing out as Crowley began to preen them.

“These would look and feel a lot better if you’d do this yourself once in a while.” Crowley’s fingers combed through his scapulars and Aziraphale hummed with pleasure.

“I like it better when you do it.” 

Crowley planted a kiss between his shoulder blades and went to work on his tertials. Aziraphale closed his eyes and reflected happily on this morning’s erotic adventures, when he’d held Crowley’s wrists above his head while fucking him, the faces and sounds Crowley had made. Aziraphale tingled all over as his mind began to embroider the memory, thinking about what they might try next time. So many delicious possibilities. After all, they weren’t human. "You know," he said, "our people have accused us of going native, and I begin to think maybe they're right."

"How do you mean?"

"It occurs to me that aside from taking our wings out now and again, we have not been...maximizing our potential."

"You sound like Gabriel. Speak English, not corporate!" Crowley discarded a molted sheath and began aligning the secondary and primary feathers in Aziraphale’s right wing. Shivers ran down the wing and into his spine.

"Mmm, that is so lovely. What I mean is, we have been fucking like humans do."

"...I didn't think you were disappointed."

Aziraphale turned to look at Crowley over his shoulder. "You know I'm not.” He caught Crowley’s hand and kissed it. “But we certainly have not made use of the full range of our God-given powers."

"Angel, your powers may be God-given, but--"

"Don't change the subject." Aziraphale reached for the book he’d been reading. “I’m a bit embarrassed to admit this, but inspiration has come from an unusual source, this ridiculous book about witches that Shadwell loaned me.” He found the place he had marked. “‘Marie de Marigrane, a girl of Biarritz aged fifteen years, affirmed that many women, who had slept with the devil, said that--’”

“The devil has better things to do than ‘sleep with’ human women--” Crowley scoffed.

“Just listen! ‘...said that the member of the devil for its full length was of two parts, commonly forked like a serpent's tongue; he customarily performed both coitus and pederasty at once, while sometimes a third prong reached to his lover's mouth.’"

Crowley’s hands had gone still in his feathers. “...”

“Well?” Aziraphale prompted.

“You could fuck my arse and my mouth at the same time,” Crowley said, his voice rough.

“And both hands, if I had sufficient concentration. And your cunt, if you wanted to make one.” 

“Ngggrgh,” Crowley growled, biting the back of Aziraphale’s neck and pressing against him. Aziraphale reached back to pull him closer.

“‘Like a serpent’s tongue.’ We haven’t tried you being a snake, either.”

“Snakes have two pricks, you know,” Crowley said in his ear, “and fangs,” he grazed Aziraphale’s neck again, and this time Aziraphale felt needle sharpness raising the hair on his nape. “And they can squeeze the breath right out of you.”

Aziraphale felt himself tumesce at the possibility of Crowley’s coils wrapped around him. He had become rather fond of breathing. Being forced to go without could be...interesting. He pressed his arse back into the basket of Crowley’s hips, felt Crowley hard against him.

“And there’s more than just changing our shapes,” Aziraphale continued, beginning to envision the whole banquet of delights available to them. “There’s so much we can do! I could pin you to the wall or the headboard with a thought. Strip you with a wish. Bind your limbs with my mind, leaving my hands free for other things…” 

Crowley was rubbing himself against Aziraphale now, gripping the base of his wings, hot breath brushing his ear. “We could fuck in space,” Crowley said, “no gravity, floating out in the stars…”

Aziraphale lit up with desire, his imagination in full flow. “I could bring blood to your cock just by imagining it, create pressure and sensation from the surrounding atmosphere, fuck you on air, make you come without touching you at all. All while telling you how beautiful you are and how richly you deserve it.”

“Oh, angel, how I love your filthy mind,” Crowley hissed, with a particularly exuberant thrust. 

Then his hips stilled. “I’ve been thinking...for a while now. I remembered--” Crowley turned Aziraphale’s face to kiss him. “Do you know what I want?” His expression was rapt, his eyes fired with intensity. “Bodies are great, and you know how I feel about yours. But let’s leave them for a while.”

“You mean -- our true forms? You mean--” Angelic union was an ecstatic expression of love beyond human imagination or physical capacity. It wasn’t surprising that Crowley missed it. What surprised Aziraphale was the realization that since coming to earth, he hadn't thought about it at all, himself. Of course, sharing that kind of intimacy with the angels of his acquaintance didn't bear thinking about. But with Crowley...oh. Oh, he wanted it.

Crowley kissed him again. “Yeah.”

Aziraphale ached with longing. “Oh, but. Oh, Crowley, we can’t!” He reeled in his wings and turned to face Crowley. 

Contrary to what some humans believed, an angel's true form was not all wheels of fire and thousands of eyes. Oh, they could look like that, if they were the sort of angel who preferred to terrify people half to death. But in their own realm -- not Heaven, but the aether, where they were made -- angels were the essence of God's grace, projections of God's love, compassion and purity barely contained in a winged, shifting, permeable envelope -- permeable to other angels. Aziraphale didn't know what would happen if a demon tried to enter him that way.

Aziraphale also didn't know what the pure form of a demon was like. He had vague notions of a pit of hate and despair, a raging flame consuming everything to ash, a black hole devouring matter and light, and felt sick with guilt for even imagining them -- of course Crowley wasn't any of those things. But he couldn’t ask Crowley such a question. 

“Heaven and Hell won’t care, or even notice. You know they won’t. What are you afraid of?”

He was letting Crowley down again, he knew. “I’m afraid we’ll hurt each other.”

Crowley looked down, then into Aziraphale’s eyes. “I remember what it was like, you know,” he said quietly. 

Aziraphale heard the grief in his voice, the ache of the loss that he so rarely referred to, even now. Aziraphale wanted to reach out, stroke his face, but he sensed that this was not the moment. "Oh my dear, I would love nothing more than to be able to--” to give you divine ecstasy. To bless you with holy rapture. A flash of desire rolled through Aziraphale like lightning, making his stomach flip. Oh, how I want to. “But it won't be like that. We won't be in Her presence."

"God is everywhere."

"I...I don't believe that,” Aziraphale said, looking away. “Not anymore."

"I do.” Crowley took Aziraphale by the shoulders. Aziraphale met his eyes with some reluctance. “Aziraphale, you are an Angel of the Lord. I know what you can do. And I want it.” Crowley swallowed. “I need it."

Aziraphale pressed his forehead to Crowley’s. All he had wanted, since everything changed, was to give Crowley what he needed. And it was almost impossible to get Crowley to admit he needed anything at all, ever. But the risk of this -- “I could hurt you,” he said softly. “I could destroy you.”

“You won’t.”

“How can you know that?”

“This isn't like holy water. It's  _you_ ,” Crowley said, raking his hand through his hair. “When will you realize that we’re made of the same stuff?” He tossed his head, then met Aziraphale’s gaze again. “Look, I know you don’t believe me. Believe this: I trust you.” 

Aziraphale’s heart ached. He was fairly sure Crowley had never said those words to anyone before. Aziraphale was awestruck that Crowley would give him this kind of power, and with the awe came a sliver of hope. What if Crowley was right? What if this was -- safe for them? If it was...if it was, the bliss of the experience would be unimaginable. His mouth filled, his cock filled, at the thought of it. But of course, he would have neither mouth nor cock in the aether. Bodies were thoughts, there. In the aether, speech was not possible, but it was also unnecessary; in the aether, thought and emotion and essence were one, united in a blaze of truth. Aziraphale reeled for a moment: to have the power to show Crowley the raw reality of his love. To give Crowley everything he felt, all at once. Palms growing cold, Aziraphale comprehended all the weight of such an enormous responsibility. He would rise to it, or be damned.

Aziraphale covered Crowley’s hand with his own. “I will honor your trust,” he said. Oh, he wanted this so much. Perhaps even more than Crowley did. And yet his stomach continued to flutter. “You must promise me. The instant you feel anything wrong, you must pull away.”

“Not gonna happen,” Crowley said, with a slight twist of a smile. His breath was coming a bit fast, though.

“Promise me.”

“I promise, Aziraphale.”

Aziraphale brought Crowley’s hand to his lips, then let it go. He took a breath. “Are you ready?”

Crowley looked for a moment like his mind was racing, like he wanted to say something clever, or profound. In the end, all he said was “Yes.”

The room melted away as they emanated into the not-space not-time of the aether, less a realm than a state of being. Aziraphale was. Crowley was. Crowley was...a surprise. Aziraphale felt his love first of all, profound, compassionate, amused, regretful, lusty. And then, with delight, Aziraphale experienced the other tones of Crowley’s essential self as they rose around him -- grief, imagination, creativity, bitterness, cunning, agape, love of nature, delight at the things of man, somehow even a note of sarcasm, which should not have been possible without language and yet it was, as surely as Crowley was. He was not an angel, he was not a radiant being of pure love and grace. He was dappled like the afternoon sun coming through trees in a wood, bright and cool, hot and shady, just the way Aziraphale loved him. Aziraphale realized how daft he had been to worry about Crowley’s true form. Crowley was Crowley, always.

Aziraphale heard/felt/experienced/knew a reverberation, a merry clash and chime, Crowley’s laughter. Crowley was regarding him with amusement and wonder. Aziraphale regarded himself.

Aziraphale hadn’t had any reason to assume his true form since he had first been stationed at the Eastern Gate thousands of years ago. He had been on earth, in his earthly form (comfortable, now beloved) ever since, apart from his recent discorporation and temporary cohabitation with Madame Tracy. Even then, his essence had assumed the same familiar human shape in Heaven, in mirrors, and so on until Adam had remade his good old body. So Aziraphale’s memory of his original, aetherial self was simply that of what all angels were: love, grace, and light.

He was all of those things now, but he was no longer pure. With growing alarm he perceived his own chiaroscuro: the temptations he had done on Crowley’s behalf and the suffering that had resulted, the people he had harmed with his own selfishness or haste or pettiness, and above all his cowardice -- the fear of Heaven and its abuse that had driven him to threaten a boy’s life, to risk the world, and to hurt the one he loved most.

Aziraphale panicked, afraid for a non-second in non-time that he had Fallen. But no, grace was still there. Relief flooded him as he flexed his wings and felt it, and felt love coursing through him, hardy as ever. But the grace and the love Aziraphale felt in himself, that had been essential to his understanding of himself for so long, seemed not to come from God, anymore. Like the love he felt in Crowley, they seemed to come from himself, from the core of him, from his own soul. A trickle of courage, even righteousness, flowed through him as they had when he'd lifted his flaming sword on the day of Armageddon. God had not rejected him, and Heaven hadn’t kicked him out. Aziraphale had left them behind. He had chosen the world, and he had chosen Crowley. 

Aziraphale regarded Crowley now, Crowley who was shimmering at him with love and desire. It was the same shimmer Aziraphale perceived in himself. He too was dappled, sun and shade. Aziraphale wasn’t sure if he was an angel anymore, but he had to know if angelic union was still possible. If he could give Crowley this, if he could do this for them both, he had to try.

Aziraphale reached for Crowley. Crowley reached for him. The first touch, hazy wingtip to wingtip, was a spark, and they drew back slightly. Aziraphale was on the point of returning to the earthly plane right then, but that sliver of hope remained. That electric sensation wasn’t pain, not exactly. They reached for each other again. Aziraphale was determined now. He would be brave. The next touch fizzed like champagne, and Aziraphale felt/heard Crowley’s laugh again, and then he was laughing himself, and then if they had had human bodies they would have flung their arms around each other in giddy delight. They embraced in a shimmer of happiness, tintinnabulating and shining, effervescent.

Crowley’s yearning came to the fore now, and he probed at Aziraphale, undulating and resonating against him and singing his desire. It was so strong, Aziraphale could almost see his dear earthly body, hooded golden eyes and sinuous hips thrusting and rutting cock standing tall for him. And then the impression dissolved and Crowley once again simply _was,_ essential, all about him, a cloud of thought and that thought was _more_. Aziraphale could almost hear Crowley hiss it in his mind’s ear, and he gave back _yes, my dear, yes._ Crowley’s pleasure buoyed him upward, aloft on his own wings and bolstered by his own very real relief -- this felt good, this _was_ _good_ \-- and Aziraphale opened himself, wings beating hard, and drew Crowley inside. Euphoria suffused him, like nothing he had known even in the ecstasies of worship. His soul, his self, was open, naked, vulnerable; Crowley could rend him in pieces and Aziraphale would thank him for it, but Crowley poured in pleasure, love, the delirium of passion unfulfilled and ever-fulfilled. Hungry and aching, Aziraphale enfolded him more deeply. Crowley rooted into him with fervor, and now it was Aziraphale whose only thought was more, whose essence was more. Driven with need, he enclosed Crowley fully and rang with exaltation in peal after peal. Crowley, clanging and throbbing within him, screamed his joy into the aether.

They were. They were breathing. They were embodied. They were on the bed, in the room. Naked, panting, entwined. Aziraphale opened his eyes and saw tears streaking Crowley’s face. His heart, now open to everything Crowley was, broke.

“I’ve been wrong,” Aziraphale said. “About Heaven and Hell. About angels and demons. About right and wrong. About everything.”

Crowley opened his eyes. Looked at him frankly. “Yes.”

“Especially about us.”

“Yup.”

Aziraphale swallowed. After all this, he thought, surely he should be fearless? “When I said those things, at the bandstand. It was myself I was trying to convince. Not you. When you said we could go off together, I -- I never knew I could want something so much. I was terrified.”

Crowley didn’t blink. “You hurt me. Badly.”

“I must have been hurting you for a very long time.”

“You’ve been delighting me for a very long time, too,” Crowley said, a familiar look of fond indulgence beginning to crease his features.

Aziraphale wouldn’t let him wile his way out of this. “You’ve been so patient with me.”

“Nah, I wasn’t patient. Patience didn’t enter into it.” Crowley rubbed at his face, examined the moisture on his fingers curiously for a moment. “I had no hope, you see.”

Aziraphale’s eyes filled with tears. “Oh, Crowley.” His throat was tight, the words coming out in a high, painful creak. “I’m so sorry. I’m so sorry.”

“Sssh.” Crowley took Aziraphale’s face in his hands, thumbing away his tears. “I forgive you. I’ve always forgiven you.”

“How can you? When I’ve --”

“I knew how frightened you were, of Heaven, of losing your faith, of losing me,” Crowley said. Aziraphale felt himself letting go of the last traces of fears he hadn’t known he was still holding onto. Crowley kissed him gently. “I always knew you loved me,” Crowley said.

“Oh, I do, I do love you! I’ve always loved you! Always!” Aziraphale was glad he had arms now, as he flung them about Crowley, and glad Crowley had a voice now, to laugh a little.

“So I guess I really am the nice one,” Crowley murmured in his ear. Aziraphale could hear the smile in his voice.

Aziraphale, flooding with gratitude and wonder, kissed Crowley again and again. And then pulled back, startled.

“What?” Crowley asked, puzzled.

A corona of golden light was emanating from Crowley, flickering like fire, hot and bright and dancing, throwing sparks into his eyes.

“My dear,” Aziraphale murmured, “my dear, look.” He lifted Crowley’s glowing hand before their faces, smiling. “You have a --”

“Don’t say it!” Crowley gasped, his eyes wide.

“You said it yourself. You’re the nice one.” Aziraphale stroked his radiant, wondering face. “And we’re...made of the same stuff.”

Crowley kissed him. Crowley’s warmth and brilliance enveloped him. For the first time in six thousand years, Aziraphale felt safe.

**Author's Note:**

> Title from Walt Whitman’s _To You_ , quoted below in its entirety:
> 
> To You
> 
> Whoever you are, now I place my hand upon you, that you be my poem,  
> I whisper with my lips close to your ear,  
> I have loved many women and men, but I love none better than you.  
> O I have been dilatory and dumb,  
> I should have made my way straight to you long ago,  
> I should have blabb'd nothing but you, I should have chanted nothing but you.
> 
> I will leave all and come and make the hymns of you,  
> None has understood you, but I understand you,  
> None has done justice to you, you have not done justice to yourself  
> None but has found you imperfect, I only find no imperfection in you,  
> None but would subordinate you, I only am he who will never consent to subordinate you,  
> I only am he who places over you no master, owner, better, God, beyond what waits intrinsically in yourself.
> 
> \-- 
> 
> The book Aziraphale reads from is On the Inconstancy of Witches: Pierre de Lancre's Tableau de l'inconstance des mauvais anges et demons, written in 1612. If you want to read more about women condemned as witches having sex with the devil, check out [The Body Is Sacred](http://www.thebodyissacred.org/origin/devilssex.asp).
> 
> \--
> 
> Six thousand thanks to [Juliet](https://archiveofourown.org/users/juliet) for extraordinary and heroic beta while they could have been working on their own fic instead (keep your eyes peeled for it, it’s gorgeous).
> 
> The notion of angels ringing like bells is an homage to [LauraJV](https://archiveofourown.org/users/jacquez/pseuds/Laura%20JV)’s [Their Harmony Foretells](https://archiveofourown.org/works/19193839). Without that story, and without [LauraJV](https://archiveofourown.org/users/jacquez/pseuds/Laura%20JV), I might never have written GO fic at all. Endless gratitude to her.


End file.
